Move Over, Mr. Newton

Isaac Newton is remembered for his brilliant insight while sitting under an apple tree. The blow from the falling fruit must not have been so bad. After all, Newton followed up his discovery of the laws of gravity with his Three Laws of Motion.

I was thinking about Newton’s Three Laws of Motion the other day as I pondered energy prices over the past year. It was then that I had my own flash of inspiration: Newton was wrong!

For one thing, this absurd law of gravity is preposterous. As anybody in the world of energy knows -- as any driver pulling up to a gas station experiences weekly -- what goes down must come up! Anybody remember $.79 cent gas in 2002?

As for Newton’s Three Laws, the ones that scientists say define the universe? The ones that make Newton more influential among scientists than Einstein? Balderdash! Let’s consider them, one by one.

Silly Law No. 1
Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

Hello? Has anybody looked at a chart of energy prices lately? They make the Rocky Mountains look like Kansas. Millions of people use energy daily for everything from heating soup to watching television. Their use is constant, persistent, and insatiable. Even Al Gore can’t do without air conditioning. Try to eat a hamburger that hasn’t been cooked. Ugh.

So with all this constant demand for energy, why aren’t prices constant? Because Newton was wrong, of course! Prices bounce around like a Karaoke ball singing the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.”

Energy prices will continue to change whether we like it or not. They will go up or down for no reason. And there ain’t nothing we or any external force can do about it.

Silly Law No. 2
The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors; in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.

Look, I wasn’t born yesterday. Last year when crude oil was trading at $147/barrel and natural gas was over $13 per thousand cubic feet, the vector (i.e., direction) of energy prices was up, up and away! Practically every analyst on Wall Street was predicting $200/barrel crude oil prices (and $5 gasoline) by the end of the year.

Where are we today? Crude oil below $70/barrel (it got as low as $32.40), natural gas to $3.155. Demand was constant, shortages were pervasive, prices were going one way: Up! Today prices are down and the bears are out in full force, predicting the end of the world as we know it.

Of course, Newton’s Second Law is as true as it was before. Not! Prices are going right back where they went before, into the stratosphere (where, incidentally, Newton spent some of his free time contemplating the laws of celestial motion).

Silly Law No. 3
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This one really takes the cake. This may work on the playground -- push the kid and you get punched -- but in the energy world it’s loony. Ever watch the sparks fly from a sparkler on the Fourth of July?

Actually, a better example would be a two year old after losing a balloon. There’s an action (lost balloon rising into sky) and a reaction (red face, stomping feet, shrieks of uncontrollable frustration and anger). Equal and opposite? Hardly.

Like a toddler, energy prices are highly emotional. Sure they respond to supply and demand factors: Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico that threaten offshore production or steamy summers and frigid winters. But they also respond to perceptions and fear: A faltering economy, the prospects of war in the Mideast, weather forecasts and speculative trading binges.

Now that we’ve demolished Newton’s Three Laws of Motion, I present you with the True, Sublime, Incontrovertible Laws of Energy:

1. Energy prices a year from now will be either higher or lower than they are today, but not both at the same time.
2. Energy prices will go up or down when nothing happens.
3. Most people will not turn down their thermostats when it’s cold outside or turn them up when it’s warm.
4. Politicians will continue to talk about energy supply and nothing will be done about it.

There you have it, folks. The universe in a nutshell.

And by the way, be sure to look down or you might get hit by that apple on the ground!